Golden Dreams and Manifest Nightmares

[Imperial Overlord]

Indira House
Sophia
Narsia
Narsen Domain

Executor Adam Montrose waited as the fleet strategists and battlemasters of the Narsen military filed in the address the government. The Consult and the leaders of the Narsen Senate were present, as were the senior ministers of the Executor's cabinet. "I don't think we need any sugar coating," Montrose said without preamble. "Tell us what we are up against."

Strategist Wilimina Dixon stood up. She was a tall, gold skinned woman with night black hair. "We are under attack by a genocidal theocracy that outnumbers us nearly ten to one. They possess a large fleet, several powerful classes of ship that we do not, and army far larger than ours and will attempt to destroy us through attrition. This strategy is quite workable and will succeed if we allow them to enact it."

"They are not without weaknesses. They have heavy hull armour in part to compensate for inferior shields and reactors. Any engagement involving near parity of ship classes will result in an overwhelming Narsen victory. Their ground forces are radically inferior in every respect.

"It is likely that they will attempt to reverse engineer our technology and equip their ground troops with weapons specifically to counter our advantages. Heavy antitank weaponry and personal weapons and ammunition intended to defeat our body armour are likely paths of development. Although it is likely to take several years time to reverse engineer our technologies and then at least of year of production before any of it appears in signifigant numbers. To be blunt, should the war last for five or more years, the enemy's technology will be much more capable than it is now."

"You paint a grim picture Fleet Strategist," said Senator Zeiss. "Is there any good news?"

"Actually there is. Consul Tristan of your own party was quite helpful in this regard." Ygraine Tristan nodded her head in acknowledgement. The grand old lady of the Socialist Party was well over one hundred and was known for a sharp mind and tongue. "The Select have a number of exploitable weaknesses."

She called up a holo display. "Survey ships and prisoner interrogations have given us the locations of most of their systems, nineteen in all. They are all heavily populated, but amost entirely concentrated on the main planet. There is minimal use of other system resources and most of their industrial capacity is already dedicated to the military in some form or the other. They have little excess civilian capacity, unlike us, and very little in the way of automation."

"Their numerical advantage is also not as great as it would appear. A large chunk of their population are children and their woman are confined to child care and household maitenance chores for the most part. They also support a large, unproductive class of religious leaders that control the majority of the society's wealth. And then we come to agriculture."

"A population this large needs to eat a lot and this is primarily done by lightly mechanised agriculture. This is in part because of a cultural belief in the purity of working with the soil and party to give the large population of unmarried young men hard labour to do that will minimize their ability to cause trouble. They can mechanize and reduce their manpower requirement, but that will require considerable industrial resources, which would be diverted from the war effort.

"The Select also maintain a huge internal security force, which is also mans the system defences, the Heaven's Sheppards. We can expect coordination between the Heaven's Sheppards and their regular military, the Sword of God, to be poor based on interrogations. Furthermore, they have quality problems with their personel."

"Science is not encouraged in their society. Actually, any kind of thought at all is not encouraged. Most of heir technical personel are rote trained to do their jobs and little understanding of the machinery and electronics they work with. Senior personel have superior training and understanding, as are long service low rankers, but they are few and hard between."

"In contrast, we have a large potential pool of replacements for all branches of service. Since our people remain fit for duty well up to the age on one hundred we can, in the short term, replace casualties with highly skilled men and women. They, on the other hand, will suffer quality degredation almost immediately."

"Interesting," said Consul Klein, "but where does this lead us?"

"In a tight spot," admitted Dixon. "A long term war of attrition will be fatal. We do not have the strength to decisively defeat them in the short term. An alternate strategy is necessary.

"Our combat assesements have shown that several craft in our inventory have performed less than optimally in fleet engagements. Further production of these craft will be discontinued in favor of higher performing replacements. We will need several new designs to successfully persecute this war. Most critically, our battle computers have not performed as well as we would have liked in these large scale fleet engagements and we need vessels capable of hosting these systems and surviving concentrated enemy fire. We also need the capacity to smash extremely heavy orbital and ground defences, which the Select seem to possess, and launch successful invasions of our own. Our victories over the Select have revealed certain flaws in our entirely theoretical approach. We are endeavouring to correct these."

"So what course of action do you recommend, Strategist Dixon?" asked the Executor.

"Sir, we need to hurt the Select to buy time. Raider squadrons should be formed using underperforming ships such as Vigilance, Survey, Retaliator, and Sentinel class vessels. The Select appear to have a very limited civilian shipping industry and huge transport needs to resupply their fleets and construct their fleet base. We should make them bleed to buy time."

"Secondly, we should concentrate our remaining combat ships in a First, Second, and Third Fleet. First fleet should stay at Fairhaven until the system is more heavily fortified. Second and Third Fleets need to drop the hammer at Loren's World, before the enemy fleet is too heavily reinforced. Loren's World should be resupplied and then the Fleet's withdrawn.

"Second and Third Fleet should be kept as a mobile reserve. Our FTL speed is superior to that of the enemy, even before we account for them being tied to their extremely slow capital ships. Our detection equipment is also superior. We can accept some damage of infrastructure to obliterate an enemy fleet."

Montrose's voice was level. "This is the heart of the plan. Bait them into an attack on a major system, let them think they can pull it off, and then crush them."

"Yes sir. We need to inflict heavy damage on their fleet so we can hit their home systems hard without risking a collapse at home."

"I see. Should our strategy fail we will have no recourse but to attempt to bring the United Protectorates into the war. As a state with a state religion and an obvious dislike for genetic modification, we must hope they have a sufficient hatred of the Select or of religiously motivated genocide for them to interviene on our side. Historical analysis reveals that human frequently ignore occurances of genocide in distant places, especially if it is of a group they dislike. I have more faith in our soliders."

[Imperial Overlord]

High Orbit
Loren's World
Select Occupied Space
Jerusalem class Supercarrier Promised Land

411 LF

"Sky Marshall!" came the yell from the FTL sensor station. "Approach readings Narsen space. Magnitude Six!"

"Magnitude Six?" said Vynes. Select hyperspace tracking systems left a lot to be desired. Magnitude Six readings meant a lot of ships. "Arrival time?"

"Thirty minutes, plus or minus ten."

"Sound battlestations. Redeploy the fleet in staggered pyramind formation. Launch probes to blanket the emergence area. I want hard data yesterday!"

The ship exploded into activity. Magnitude meant a lot of ships, especially given the Narsen's lack of large capitals which could skew the results. Of course their powerful drives could also be producing anomylous results."

Time ticked away. The Narsen fleets emerged in a flash of light. "Emergence."

"I see," said Vynes. "Get me data."

"Enemy ships. Numbers are coming in. More than three hundred enemy contacts." Near parity or parity in numbers, a guarrantee that his ships would get butchered by Narsen missle swarms.

"Narsen ships firing drives." At this range, with the lightspeed gap, they must have done so almost immediately after emergence. Damn they were good.

"Ship data," Vynes ordered. The holographic display flickered into life. Just slighlty over three hundred ships, a marginally smaller number than his own combined fleets. Cruiser to escort ratio of three to one instead of the more common four to one and all indications were that only their more capable classes of vessel were present. The pirate hunting compromise destroyers had been replaced by missle heavy ships.

Fighting this Narsen fleet would be a one sided bloodbath. "Sir, we are getting hyper interference."

"What?"

"Distortions across the hyper bands. Its building." Making a hyper jump near a grav source was hard enough, but interference could make it impossible. "Origin seems to be the Narsen fleet."

"So much for hyper interference technology being theoretically possible," muttered Vynes. It made sense, he realized belatedly. The Narsen fleet was clearly largely configured around anti-raider work. Developing this technology would be a high priority for them.

And now it would enable the Narsen to trap and kill his ships. "Order the fleet to brake for hyper," the sky marshal ordered. "Ezekial Fleet is to break away from the Narsen Fleet, sixty degrees sunward. Joseph is to break fifty degrees outwards. John, directly away, seventy degrees plus."

The move would get his ships away from the gravity well and hopefully prevent the Narsen from pursuing more than one group effectively. He didn't think all of them would be able to escape. If they concentrated their fast missle ships on one group, they would be in effective engagement range before the Select ships could manage to escape. The Narsen ships were to fast and their missles went too far and hit too hard.

He was right. Vynes watched John Fleet be run down by the Narsen. Hyper disruption fields still surrounded the doomed as the first volley of Narsen missles closed. The Promised Land vanished from real space before he was forced to witness the death throws of his men.

------------------------------------------------------------

Fleet Rank Marcus Hiro watched as boarding parties stormed the last of the Select ships. The dispersal tactic had saved two thirds of their fleet, but doomed the last. Hiro switched channels in the command net. "Battlemaster Tarjan."

"Fleet Rank."

"We will begin deploying your troops to the planetary surface in two hours."

"I think six more brigades with a very large load of supplies might be able to arrange a suitable welcome for the next Select invasion force."

[Chris OFarrell]

Woho! More!

[Imperial Overlord]

Warspite Shipyards
Charon
Narsen Domain

412 LF

A web of steel floated above the grim and cold planet. Shield generators and the the third strongest defence network guarded it from attack. The Warspite yards had been named with more than a touch of irony, but were the second largest military shipyard in Narsen space.

Deputy Design Director Carlo Mendar waited by the hanger for their visitor to arrive. The door cycled and Fleet Strategist Idora Payne stepped through. They were polar opposites, Payne tall, pale, and female; Mendar stocky, male and dark. "Strategist. Welcome to Warspite."

"Thank you. I will be as brief as possible and cost you the minimum amount of productive time."

"Thank you Fleet Strategist. Follow me." Mendar lead Payne to a lift tube and activated it.

"The enemy has heavily fortified High Mesa and we are not in position to hold the space around Loren's World. Fairhaven may not hold. They can build strong points on either system to drive at our core worlds. This situation must be rectified." It went without saying the design bureaus at Warspite were cleared to a very high level. "We need the tools for the job."

The lift doors opened. "Follow me Strategist." Mendar lead her through to a stark and barren room. A thought triggered a cyberlink and activated the screens that tooke up the walls. The complex was full of such devices. Humans, even post humans, benefited from living and working in pleasant and scenic enviroments. Warspite Yards used illusion in the forms of wall screens, holo projectors, and VR to make it while minimizing the space requirements.

One screen displayed a small, slim vessel. Data displayes trickled down the side and down both post human's cyberlinks. "Survey class scoutship," began Mendar, "internally reconfigured. Crew cut down to Five people with direct cyberlink control. One can theoretically run it. Heavy beam turret, spinal mounted laser. Fast, good computers, and contributes to defence net. Guts larger ships at close range. And we can crank them out."

"Good, but it is an auxilary vessel."

"The other is good to perform at sub optimal levels. Design compromises in order to get it into service as fast as possible. Lots of steel and iridium from the belt, not much in the way of fancy materials. Firedrake's reactors, but more of them. Dedicated comp stacks and heavy sensor reduncy. Heavy armour, tortoise shell style shield generator emplacements. Missle tubes, drone bays, heavy cruiser grade laser turrets. And the main guns."

"Fusion payload railguns."

"Correct. We took small, proof of concept prototypes as our base, not the Firedrake's spine. Mounted dorsal and ventral in six double turrets, three above, three below. The next generation will outperform it completely. Larger, more efficient reactors and shields, better design of sensor and comp facilities, tougher armour, better skeleton, so on and so forth. But this will meet your requirements and be ready by the end of the year."

"What do you call it?"

"Compared to most of our warships, she's slow. So although its classified as a battle ship, most of us call it the battle barge."

"I dont' care about its nickname, just that it kills the enemy."

"It will do that ma'am."

"Good. Go to full scale production on the battle barges as soon as possible. We'll take the stingers as well."

[Imperial Overlord]

Mecca class dreadnought Mecca
High Orbit
High Mesa
Realm of the Select Occupied Territory

412 LF

The conference room on Mecca was roomy and comfortable. Icons of Prophets were displayed on the walls in gilded frames and luxurious, authentic leather chairs allowed for a score of men to sit in comfort. Sophisticated holodisplay projectors built into the table allowed the presentation of any images the officers and priests might wish.

There were only three men in the room at the moment. Sky Marshals Vynes and Hansen were entering the room. Sky Marshal Donner was sitting down. Hansen was the youngest of them, a shaven headed bull of a man who was tough enough to survive in the charged political atmosphere of the upper ranks of the Sword of God. In thruth, the continuation of his career was due in part to Heaven's Sheppards thinking he wasn't bright enough to assemble a conspiracy rather than actual political acumen.

"What's the meaning of this?" Hansen barked gruffly as he settled in a seat. "No priests, no aid, no god damn time to schedule anything."

"Have you seen the recent reports?" Donner asked mildly. Vynes held his tongue.

"Damn right I have. Raiders hitting are supply lines and picking off deep system ouposts. That fucking blood bath at Loren's World. Two fleet defeats in a row. Those fucking Narsen aren't fucking laying down and dying easy, not like those fucking pagan pussies."

"Yes," said Donner. The interdiction technology took us by surprise. The Narsen are also counter attacking aggressively, which means they aren't fools. From Sierra we have easy routes to Loren's World and Fairhaven. From Loren's World and Fairhaven we can strike their core worlds. In fact, if we can establish a fleet base at either planet we have no shortage of targets the Narsen can't afford to lose."

"What are you getting at?"

"If you were the Narsen, where would you anticipate us attacking?"

"Loren's World. Not to avenge our wounded pride, but because we destroyed their defence network. Fairhaven's was stronger and they've had ample opportunity to reinforce it."

"Yes, I imagine they have. They have probably devoted a sizable portion of their defence satellite production into reinforcing Fairhaven. What will happen if we hit them?"

"We face their fleet and their orbital defences," said Vynes cautiously. "It will be bloody."

"And if we hit them with everything except Home Fleet and the reserves?"

The room was silent for a moment. "They can't withstand that," said Vynes. "The consequences-"

"I know. Stripping our mobile defence and reaction force. Allowing the possibility of a Narsen counter attack to slip into our space and devestate our worlds. Except they lack heavy capital ships. They can devestate asteroid mines and gas giant stations all they want. What is truly valuable, they'll have to bleed for. Bleeding they can't afford. And as of this moment, they aren't positioning to attack our worlds but to pick off our ships."

"Yes," said Hansen, "this could work. Smash their network. Smash any ships that stand and fight. Threaten their capital and all their productive worlds while they think the hammer will fall at Loren's World. We've built a heavy defence network around Sierra. A fleet could take it, but anything less will get ass fucked."

"The Prophet won't approve," said Vynes. "Too much of a gamble." Vynes succeeded at keeping the contempt out of his voice.

"We're not asking the Prophet or the Elders. We're persecuting the war they've charged us to win. We have discretion. And if we overstep, well all is forgiven if you are victorious because that means God is on your side."

The Sword of God Sky Marshals exchanged toothy smiles. Even a Prophet had to be careful in dealing with those who were victorious in war. "I wonder if any of the Narsen worlds has good beach front property," Hansen mused.

"We'll find out soon enough," Vynes replied.

[Imperial Overlord]

Firedrake Class Battlecruiser Anacalagon
High Orbit
Fairhaven
Narsen Domain

"First Rank, sensor data is being recieved from far observers."

"Put it through analysis and ransfer to me," Hallstrom ordered his junior officer. The Narsen had seeded the system with a number of stealthed sensor platforms. They hadn't needed those to notice the hyper tracks of the incoming Select fleet, but more accurate data was precious. The sensors said there was a lot incoming.

If Hallstrom had believed in a benevolent higher power he might have called out to it. There were nearly five hundred light vessels, a mix of destroyers, missle boats, frigates, and gun boats. More one hundred cruisers ranging from scout carriers to heavy gun platforms backed up their lighter brethren. At the core of the fleet were more than a score of capital ships, a mix of gun heavy battleships and and super carriers. More ships, over a hundred, trailed the Select Fleet.

Hallstrom activated a secure com channel. A virtual image of himself stood in the void. Opposite of him stood Lydia Cain. Hallstrom gestured and the data on the Select Fleet appeared off to the side. "The enemy are coming in strength," he virtual image said.

"I see," she replied. Beneath them a representation of the star system blinked into existence. Cool blue marked the positions of the Select Fleet and blood red the Narsen military position. "They appeared to have committed the vast majority of their fleet to this offensive."

Cain caused the ships behind the Select Fleet to glow. "Fleet tenders, repair platforms, cargo vessels, and troop transports. They intend to secure Fairhaven and begin fortifying immediately. They will have a chain of fortified systems allowing them to make safer resupply leading right up to our core worlds. Allowing them to hold Fairhaven is intolerable."

"We cannot fight off that fleet."

"Agreed. There are simply too many. We need to make them bleed and bleed badly."

The link cut off. A general communication went out. "All vessels stand by for engagement with the Select Fleet. Activate sensor and tactical links. Bring up all defensive and offensive systems and program escape jump coordinates to Narsai."